As U.S. economy struggles, missionaries’ challenges grow

Saturday

May 31, 2008 at 12:01 AMMay 31, 2008 at 8:52 PM

Securing adequate funding has always been an issue for faith-based missionaries, but the falling U.S. dollar, a flailing economy and donor fatigue following a number of large-scale, international disasters have posed even more challenges for missionaries.

Charita Goshay

Last December, the Rev. Eugene Hattie, 86, thought he was all but finished with missions work.

But when the director of a Uganda orphanage was killed in a car accident, the bishop of the country’s Kampala Archdiocese imposed upon Hattie to take over.

The Jesuit priest and Canton, Ohio, native has been a missionary since 1947, serving the poorest of the poor.

Securing adequate funding has always been an issue for faith-based missionaries, but the falling U.S. dollar, a flailing economy and donor fatigue following a number of large-scale, international disasters have posed even more challenges for missionaries such as Hattie, who has spent 25 years in Africa -- two in Sudan, and 23 in Uganda. Prior to that, he served 30 years in India.

For example, a recent fundraiser to benefit Hattie generated less than half the money it normally would have garnered in years past.

No meat, no fish

Hattie said his new orphanage, Bring Children From the Streets, houses 300 children, of whom many are AIDS orphans.

Securing adequate provisions has been nearly impossible. Hattie said one American dollar used to be worth 2,000 Ugandan shillings. Now a dollar is equal to 1,650 shillings.

“These kids have nothing,” he said, noting that the orphans subsist on a cup of tea for breakfast and a single, daily meal of black beans or posho, a hot cereal cooked in large pots in a crude outdoor kitchen.

“Most of them have never tasted fish or meat in their lives,” he said. “We were getting food from the World Food Program, but that ended in 2007 because of the earthquakes and natural disasters.”

Hattie said the orphans also lack adequate beds, clothing and facilities.

“Their living conditions are deplorable,” he said. “They didn’t have access to funds the way foreign missionaries do.”

Missionaries struggle, too

For six years, Canton native Jack Stockdale has taught English and biblically based parenting skills, and planted organic or “house churches” in Poznan, Poland, for Great Commission Ministries.

“In the six years we have lived here, the weakening American dollar has translated into an 86 percent rise in what we pay for everything (rent, gas, food, utilities, etc.),” he recently wrote in an e-mail interview.

“In addition, Poland was admitted to the European Union in 2004, one of the results of which was that prices (in the national currency) began to rise. All of this resulted in a huge increase in what it costs to keep us on the mission field.”

Stockdale said his sponsoring organization requires missionaries to return to the U.S. every two years for three months.

“Two of these months are to be spent communicating with supporters and raising new support if necessary,” he said. “We were last home October through December of last year. Due to the economic changes in Europe, we came to the U.S. with a huge deficit in our monthly support system.

“We are incredibly blessed to have a truly fabulous group of prayer and financial supporters all over the U.S.,” he said.

“I am happy to say that by the time we boarded the plane on New Year’s Eve to return to Poland, all of our needs were supplied and we had secured commitments that would sustain us fully in our ministry.”

Early returns

The Rev. Bill Carter, pastor of Little Country Church in Sandy Township, Ohio, regularly hosts missionaries as guest speakers. Carter said the economy is severely affecting their work.

“It’s becoming harder and harder for them to get churches to raise financial support for them because the churches are struggling themselves,” he said.

“Many churches are saying ‘We barely have enough to pay their own expenses.’ That’s been happening for a couple of years, but even more so, now.”

Carter said he knows of missionaries who have had to cut their assignments -- typically four years -- in half because they couldn’t afford to stay on the mission field.

“It’s affecting their work, their ministry,” he said. “They’ve had to leave their jobs, basically, to come home and build up their funds. In a few cases, some missionaries are running a deficit.”

“Being a front-line missionary, I am afforded a kind of hero status among Christians,” Stockdale said.

“This should not be so because the respective roles that ‘average American church members’ play are equally important. My need to raise support compels me to convince them of that. And that’s a good thing.”

Undaunted by the financial challenges, Hattie, who is in remission from cancer, will return to Uganda in July. He said he intends to keep working another “20 or 30 years.”

“What am I going to do, twiddle my thumbs?” he asked.

“When I go to town and see kids living like animals in the street,” Hattie said. “I can’t sleep at night.”

On the Net:

www.gospelforpoland.org

www.jesuitdet.org

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